Among the latest Pittsburgh apps: walking city tours, ordering drinks in busy bars

The first tour, to be released soon, is a walking mobile jaunt through East Liberty highlighting unique shops, restaurants and even the Joy of Life fountain by Virgil Cantini; more city tours such as the South Side bar crawl–with stops at Acacia and Skybar–are forthcoming.

When people travel, they often want to find points of interest within specific neighborhoods, explains Lauren Loughnane, a marketing member of the team.

“The tours provide a solution for travelers while getting them to engage within the community. This can help to increase traveler traffic to different areas of the city,” she says.

The team is working part-time to further develop the back end and add more tours. Suggestions are being sought. As the winner, Tagalong Tours receives a co-working incubator space, membership to the Pittsburgh Technology Council and meetups with mentors and potential investors.

Startup Weekend second place went to another app called Srvd, a creative solution to avoiding the crowd at bars all vying for the bartender’s attention. Customers can grab a seat, text the bartender with their order and be alerted by text when their drink is ready to be picked up at the bar.

Planning a wedding? A Bridesmaid App that is a collaborative tool won third place. It’s designed to make a bride’s life a little easier during the wedding planning process, from to-dos to tracking gifts.

On a more artistic note, the Carnegie Museum of Art has open-sourced (through GitHub) and updated its iOS app as a free resource for arts institutions. Originally developed for the opening the of 2013 Carnegie International, the app was improved for a better user experience and wider use by other institutions.

“The coolest thing about ours is that we’ve open-sourced all the underlying code so other cultural institutions can take, modify or extend our work to fit their needs, free of charge,” says Jeffrey Inscho, web and digital manager of CMOA.

About The Author

Deb is an award-winning journalist who loves ancient places and cool technologies. A former daily newspaper reporter and Time-Life Books editor, she writes mostly about Pittsburgh. Her stories have appeared in Fast Company, Ozy and Pittsburgh Magazine.